


What if

by ca_te



Category: Death Note
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 12:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ca_te/pseuds/ca_te
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryuk offers Light an eraser for the Death Note, what will he chose?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What if

**Author's Note:**

> Written on 13 October 2009. Written for dn_contest over at Livejournal.

To look back at something knowing that what happened cannot be changed, because of that heavy thread which is time, somehow makes things easier.

 

Light had always looked at the names he had written as something carved in the bloody surface of the world. They were there and the bodies of the people he had killed were under the ground. This was how things were supposed to be. And, although he had tried at the beginning, he had lost the count. Name after name, because in the end why keep the count if there was no way to bring them back, if there was no reason to bring them back.

But, most to Ryuk pleasure, human nature, even in the case of a wanna-be god, is incredibly easy to mess with.

It was a rainy afternoon. A week had already passed since L's heart had stopped, like a malfunctioning clock. Again tricky fate, to make the detective's heart stop with Light holding him. Tricky and bastard to make the evil glint in Light's eyes the last thing that the lonely genius had seen.

It was a rainy afternoon and the sky was gray as the watery asphalt. Light was sitting at his desk, looking at the numbers lined on his note book's pages. Equations were something calming usually, there was always a way to solve them, hidden or not. But that afternoon all he could hear were the rain drops hitting hard against the glass. There were things to be done,things to be organized and the god of a new world couldn't afford to stop. It just was impossible.

-Eh you seem quite tense these days, Light-kun!

Ryuk's voice came from over Light's right shoulder. Some times the shinigami's presence was just heavier, as if chains were to be tied to Light's shoulders and torso. Chains were something Light didn't like to think about, looking at his right wrist was something he wanted to avoid.

-I told you not to disturb me.

-It doesn't seem you are doing much, though.

Light fought the desire to slam his hands on the desk. This wasn't like him, he should have been calmer now that the detective wasn't around any more, he should have kept replaying the scene of L's death in his mind over and over. But that tingle he had felt along his veins when L's eyes had gone wider before closing, was nowhere to be found.

Ryuk looked at Light's back, at the way it was slightly hunched over. He thought it was the case to do something, and to do it soon.

Light lifted his eyes from the motionless numbers when a soft thud reached his ears. Ryuk's breath was cold on his cheek.

-What?

Light looked at the thing the shinigami had just dropped on the desk. It was a rubber. One of those blue, circular rubbers to erase the ink. It seemed as if it had just come out from some old movie.

Light's fingers stopped before reaching it, his fingertips rested on the coarse paper of the page. He knew too well that Ryuk, despite what one could think, was not the kind of shinigami who did things without purpose.

-What is with this, Ryuk?

The shinigami shifted on the mattress.

-Uh it will only make everything more interesting, Light-kun.

Ryuk knew that Light's eyebrow rising like that wasn't a good sign.

-Ah human beings are so impatient! It's a Death Eraser.

Light had never liked the sensation of losing control of his body, he had always wanted to control completely that toy made of bones and blood and organs. That was why he hated it when he couldn't avoid to feel his heart beat speed up looking at the eraser.

His fingers gripped the paper of the page. Lined up numbers crushed against each other.

Light closed his eyes, and ordered his lungs to relax, his breath to calm down.

-What's the meaning of this Ryuk!

His voice was low, it made the shinigami think of an angry animal.

-Guess you should figure it out, Light-kun...

Light couldn't avoid thinking that the eraser was just as round as L's eyes.

He had always thought of himself as a rational being, he had always been proud of that, but then why was he feeling like that after having deleted his worst enemy.

Light could feel the edges of the hole L had left in his mind. The trilling of the hunting fading away, leaving his blood watered down.

His fingers slipped over the crunched paper and closed around the rubber. It was cold against his skin, Light could feel Ryuk eyes on his back.

Outside it continued to rain, pouring down water as to punish the Earth.

Like the day L had died, his eyes closing almost following the rhythm of the rain drops.

Light dig his nails into the cold material. He cursed himself for having kept that cursed piece of paper, the one on which he had written L's real name.

Another failure of the rational, superior being he wanted to believe he was.

There was something almost poisonous in looking at L's name in his own hand writing.

-Some interesting ideas, Light-kun?

Light knew Ryuk wanted entertainment and that all that story of bringing back the dead was insane. The world was certainly not meant to know such a thing as resurrection. But him? Was he really ready for it? He had never think that a god could be scared.

He looked at the white, snaky scar left by the chain that had connected him and the detective. He wondered if there had been one also on L's thin wrist.

Light knew well that he had still other enemies to fight, skilled brats thinking to be L's successors, but to him it was like playing a chess match without the king.

Biting his lower lips, the young delusional god blinked and stopped to fight the instinct to open the drawer and take out that piece of paper.

They had always prized him for his handwriting, they had always prized him for everything. But they wouldn't prize him for those crooked characters, written fast, written only to kill, without other purpose.

Light let L's real name swim in his mind, along the convolutions of his brain, but he didn't pronounce it. He grazed softly a blank corner of the chunk of paper with the eraser.

Outside it was still raining and he felt shivers running along his spine like water.

He just couldn't, couldn't be so reckless, he was the god of a new world after all. Yet his hand, his fingers holding the eraser shaking lightly, remained suspended over L's name still for a while.

A thunder rumbled outside, it was like if the world was laughing.

-Light-kun is deluding me.

Light gripped the eraser and just turned and threw it in the shinigami's direction. It hit the wall with an helpless thud.

-Don't do something like that any more, Ryuk!

The shinigami grinned.

-Do what, Light-kun?

-Don't tempt me!

-But isn't this what you are thinking all the time? What if?

Light felt his blood slow down its run along his veins. Just how far would the shinigami go for the sake of his own amusement? But Light knew all to well how far he himself had already gone for the sake of his desire.

-The world is not made for "what ifs", Ryuk!

The shinigami slowly sat on the bed.

-And you, Light-kun?

Light looked at the eraser, heavy on the fitted carpet. He didn't say that he was made for them even less, that he couldn't afford to think of them or all his blood stained crystal castle would fall into pieces.

-Take that eraser Ryuk.

The shinigami grinned and retrieved the eraser.

Outside the rain was falling, as the sky continued to punish the Earth.


End file.
